The armored train with Kim Jong Un left for Russia, where the North Korean leader will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin .
Kim Jong Un is slowly moving inside North Korea towards the northeastern border aboard a private train.
It is no longer just a press rumor that there will be a face-to-face meeting between the two leaders: the Kremlin and the North Korean state media have also confirmed it.
The meeting will take place in the Russian Far East: «We have been preparing for this visit for a long time», reported the representative of the local government of one of the regions in this part of Russia.
There are no other details. Putin is speaking today in Vladivostok at the Eastern Economic Forum and according to press sources the meeting could take place there. Kim's previous visit to Russia, in 2019, began with his train entering the station in Chasan, a Russian territory on the border with North Korea, then he went to Vladivostok. The visits of Kim's predecessors, father and grandfather, also began from Chasan .
But what is most interesting are the contents of the face-to-face meeting. Putin will ask Kim for weapons: according to Bloomberg, there are three types of weapons on the Russian president's wish list. The 122 and 152 millimeter artillery shells and the 122 millimeter rockets . Bloomberg also points out that North Korea is one of the few countries to have large stockpiles of Soviet-era tanks like those that Moscow has deployed in Ukraine.
Kim, who is on his first trip outside the Peninsula in the last four years, will therefore discuss the supply of weapons to Moscow. According to national security expert Terence Roehrig, interviewed by Bloomberg, "the supplies of ammunition from North Korea are unlikely to be decisive in the short term, but they will make it easier for Russia to continue a war of attrition ."
What will the North Korean dictator ask in return? According to US media , advanced technology for satellites and nuclear-powered submarines and food aid for its poor nation.
